It's Never How You Imagined It In Your Head

I like Kevin Costner. Yes, yes - he's made some stinkers that were pretty bizarre besides (think The Postman). Yet, there are whole movies from his repertoire high on my playlist (Field of Dreams, for one -cuz I'm from Iowa and, of course, as the line goes, you can confuse us with heaven...but only when trippin', I'd add), and others which have scenes atop my charts...like one in For Love of the Game (1999).

Costner plays Billy Campbell, pro baseball player who rescues damsel in distress Jane Aubrey (Kelly Preston), an everyday, run-of-the-mill pedestrian who's romantically challenged with a big heart. To say the least, their affair is complicated, but it takes a turn toward raw honesty when Billy calls from Florida to ask New Yorker Jane to come visit him at training camp. In the interest of self-preservation, she's hesitant to commit, rendering the conversation open-ended and a bit unresolved. Still, Jane musters her courage and takes a risk by boarding a plane and arriving at his door carrying nothing but "my toothbrush and a bathing suit I bought at the airport." Billy doesn't look pleased, though; this prompts Jane to doubt herself, confessing "I'm an idiot."

Then it gets really interesting.

Billy: No, I'm an idiot. Jane, listen to me. No matter what happens in the next five minutes, I want you to know that when I opened this door I was so happy to see you that my heart leapt. It leapt in my chest.

Then the gal in her underwear (saw her coming from a mile away, right?) comes skipping down the stairs and, of course, Jane makes a speedy exit. When Billy chases her down, they have a heated exchange that ends with him telling Jane he "doesn't even want that girl."

Jane: Then why is she here?
Billy: Well. I like her. She's my massage therapist.
Jane: It's never how you imagined it in your head.

And that's what strikes me.

It never is how you play it out: not the proposal or the breakup, or the birth or the death, or the good or the bad, or any of the in-between. Life still leaves me baffled, standing on the street after witnessing what I didn't see coming noting, "It's never how you imagined it in your head."

Since you clearly can't predict nearly any of it, seems to me it's the coping that counts - the standing in delivery or hanging the hat in defeat; the riding high in bliss or bending low in grief. It's the knowing what's good for you and grabbing hold or, like Jane does, getting in the car and driving off.

But no matter how you look at it, any way you cope with it...well, it never really is how you imagined it in your head.